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I can only atest to seeing this in one beta i have been in which was swtor.

A few months before launch a lot the classes had massive nerfs to their game play (cool downs added, target limits added, and some got poorly thought out mechinics changes)making the gameplay feel chuncky and much less fun to play.

The item system in beta was basicly ungrade a peice of gear you like as you level but this changed to a mostly replace gear as you level system.

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I am reminded of a browser MMORPG called Nadrim. During alpha and beta it used a differing model of play but as launch date approached the publishers and development got nervous. They changed the play model to be like every other game on the market and ditched the unique flavor previously cultivated leaving everyone surprised. It was like they grew afraid of taking a chance and hoped for a more sure return by being like everyone else by using a “proven and familiar set of mechanics.” I never thought it even half as good again.

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Usually it is a last minute feature change or activation...

For example -- you might be able to jump to Height X during the beta -- then near or at launch they decide to enable the obstacles they had by lowering the jump Height to X-1. Now all of a sudden things you could leap over are now obstacles you have no way to get over. A huge annoyance factor is added and this picks apart the game.

They could radically change the way things work right near the end. I have seen this as well, where they have a fun mechanic that works quite well but they percieve it is "too difficult" or "has the potential for being too unbalanced if played well" and they up and change the mechanic. All of a sudden the gameplay becomes tremendously different. If you prefered the old mechanic then the game could no longer be fun for you.

They could radically change things for balance. A game could have a tank class that can actually put out a little dps and in the end they decide to clamp down and make them no dps at all like in most games -- or they could remove the armor factors from the priests, or they could do all sorts of nerfs that would make riots if done when the game was launched.

They could add obstacles -- faction requirements and level or quest requirements to access X content, or add in artificial stats to block your progress for fear people will get to the end too rapidly. A lot of times this exposes a weakness in the game as the game might have been fun played straight but when you have to do questline X , well questline X wasnt as fun as the way you would have played it otherwise but you have to do it anyway changing the whole experience of the game.

They could massively simplify crafting right at the end, or make crafted products go from being utterly useful during beta to utterly useless upon launch.

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Typically any last minute change made in the beta cycle has been a disaster from my standpoint as a tester. There just isnt enough time to find all of the implications and ramifications of the change unlike if it were done say 6 months+ before release.

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Oh and one other thing -- in an early beta or alpha they seem to think more of the players than later on. They tend to make the games require more grey matter to play them and then dumb it down with time till the game is more populist/lower common denominator. I have seen tons of really neat ideas get flushed down the toilet.

At least for me, I tend to have the most fun playing a good MMO 9-15 months before it is released in the strictly closed beta timeframe with the strong NDA intact. This is from all standpoints from the community to the dev access to the true mechanics as envisioned before they get hyperbalanced and watered down. The devs also tend to be "playful" which is really quite an experience.

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TSW had better pvp in closed beta, because we were all wearing level 10 greens and only pvpers went there rather than token farming gear monkeys. Other things improved in live though, particularly the graphics.

Regarding war, you forget how ridiculously op knights were when they introduced them later, I know I played one.

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Well, as the latest Alpha I played was DayZ, I think it's mainly about those hilarious glitchy experiences you can get while playing. I guess it requires a guild/friend at least, don't think I'd have as much fun solo.

For example in that game I ran too close to my friend and somehow broke his legs and made him faint, picked him up and carried him around for 10 mins, laughing all the time, while he was begging me to let him go.

I'm sure that bug will be fixed by the time DayZ stand-alone comes out, but I'll miss that.

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I thought we were talking better as a whole not a few better features. Beta and especially Alpha has always been really buggy and near unplayble compared to the launched game so because of that I wouldn't say that is better.

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Yes they do cut key features near the end -- but the very worst is when they ditch some major feature near the end and replace it with something cobbled together at the last minute that is at best blandly standard. When you throw out something major and then end up rapid-coding some filler to take its place -- it always ends up longing.

When the decision for any feature is "This isnt going to work" or "We simply do not have the time now to finish it so yank" near the end, disaster always seems to strike.

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Does anything work in this game? The previews were alot better....No AH? WTF....Cant get on....Booted constantly(which btw should not take me out of ventrillo or keep me from getting on the internet....I have to reboot my comp??? WTF kind of BS are you doing to my video cards as well???? Now its down for maintenance at 1130 pst(BS lies).....RIDICULOUS!